Scholarships

Media, Immigration, and a Pandemic By Paul E. LeSage, Ph.D.

"If you're in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help—the only ones."- Ma Joad, The Grapes of Wrath

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Introduction:

The number of international migrants reaches 272 million, continuing an upward trend in all world regions, says UN Maelstrom in a toxic stew

Until COVID-19 enveloped it, Immigration world-wide is perhaps the most critical subject of our time with millions from around world, for various reasons such as war, starvation, repression, etc., find themselves stateless or in some other kind of limbo. To begin to try to understand broad concept of immigration, we need to see it in the context of a maelstrom of interlocking political, social, cultural and other forces, any one of which would be formidable to reckon with on its own. For the U.S. These forces are, among others, a fierce, xenophobic anti-immigration policy beginning with the 2017 discriminatory Muslim Ban, the worst economy since the 1930’s, and the most vicious pandemic killer in 100 years.

A more elusive dream for many

Despite being constantly disparaged by the highest levels of the U.S government, replete with its maleficent edicts and policies, and the manipulation of immigration law, and their constant negative portrayals in the mainstream and partisan presses, the immigrants keep coming. They still know that we are greatest nation on earth. My grandparents on both sides knew that when they emigrated from the Montreal, Quebec area to Western Massachusetts at the end of the 19th century and helped build churches and schools and communities and neighborhoods in which their children could raise their children. This is still America, and not a Russian cat toy. Hope is with the vote.

However, millions of immigrants today who are already in the U.S. and for the many on our borders and elsewhere hoping to gain entry, the American Dream has now becoming the American fright mare as lawful immigration is slowed to a halt and some people are forced to live in third-world type detention camps and others (5,500 families per CNBC news Oct. 11- 2020) are having their children stripped from them despite court orders to stop the practice.

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(Department of Economic and Social Affairs News. .)

New York 17 September 2019

With all of this, immigrants, who are predominantly from minority groups, are faced with living with the worst pandemic since 1919 with few tools or support to combat it.

“History is a nightmare from which we will never awaken.”—James Joyce

Pandemics prey on minorities: The big picture

Throughout history pandemics have affected marginalized groups and often with gruesome consequences. The August 2020 National Geographic included an extensive article called “How Pandemics Change Us.” In the story Richard Conniff offers these staggering findings: During the conquest of the American continent by the Spanish who brought small pox with them led to the destruction of two indigenous empires, the Aztecs who lost 50 percent of their population and the Incas who lost their emperor, an event which led to a civil war making a deeper opening for European colonization (53).

The author further attributes the many deaths of “Indigenous Americans” to the Spanish and the Portuguese who forced them to work in mines and on plantations with many dying from “disease and harsh labor.” He estimates that in 1492 the population of natives was 60.5 million, and by 1600 it was 6 million, a 90 percent loss of life mostly attributed to small pox. “Indigenous people lacked immunity,” Conniff said (53).

The article also cites the Cotton Mather era where 6,000 residents, more than half of the people in Boston, had come down with smallpox with a 15 percent death rate (p. 50), and in 1812, typhus killed 75 percent of Napoleon’s army (61).

Further, the author reports that in 1996 1 million refugees fled the genocide in Rwanda for what is now The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Conniff writes, “Crowds overwhelmed refugee camps and their sanitation services, allowing the cholera to spread and kill 50,000

people.”(59). Citing a tragedy in another part of the world, Conniff equates disease with the state of the environment. He states, “Today 2.1 billion people lack access to a safe water supply at home. And 4.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation. The absence of both was the main factor was the main factor sustaining the recent cholera epidemic in Haiti, which sickened at least 800,000 people and killed 10,000 there over nine years. Other victims live in the surging megacities of Asia, Africa, and Latin America” (60).

During Chaucer’s time, the Black Death killed a third of Europe’s population. Like many people today, the author’s characters in A Canterbury Tales take to the outdoors, a safer environment for them. In a July/August 2020 Smithsonian article, author Maryn McKenna outlines the impact of the Bubonic Plague which killed 25 million from 1347 to 1352. “The deadliest pandemic in recorded history, the ‘Black Death’ originated in Asia and reached Europe via the Silk Road,” she said (62).

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Perhaps one of the most atrocious acts in American history, however, was the purposely giving of blankets laced with smallpox to our Native Americans during our great Manifest Destiny (and genocidal) period. The closest event that we have to our current health crisis, however, is the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919, an event that was exacerbated, per August and Waxman, by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who failed to address the outbreak. They write, “We were the middle of World War I with the government continuing to send troops all around the world further spreading the disease (23).

In an October 2019 Time Magazine “Brief History” section, writer Olivia Waxman compares the Influenza to Covid and hypothesizes about how a pandemic ends. She writes, “More than six months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, one question remains decidedly unanswered: How will it come to an end? It is after to say someday, somehow, it will end. After all, other viral pandemics have. Take for example the flu pandemic of 1918-19. That earlier pandemic was the deadliest in the 20th century; it infected about 500 million people and killed at least 50 million including 676, 000 in the U.S.” The end of the virus, as suggested in the article, was because “the world population no longer had enough susceptible people in order for the strain to become a pandemic again.” The piece concludes, “All told, a whopping third of the world population had caught the virus. Today, about a half percent of the global population is known to be infected with the novel coronavirus” (19).

Every day is a Bedlam day for many immigrants

One thing that is not questionable is the highly documented fact that minorities, compared to whites, are dying of the pandemic in the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. Alex Fitzpatrick & Elijah Wolfson, in a Time Magazine September 21-28 2020 issue write, “The coronavirus has laid bare the inequalities of American public health. Black Americans are nearly three times as likely as white Americans to get COVID-19, nearly five times as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die . . . In other words, COVID-19 is more dangerous for Black Americans because of systematic racism and discrimination. The same is true to a lesser extent for Native American and Latino communities, according to CDC data” (46).

Characteristically, The Nation May 18/25 2020 sees the issue as economic. Correspondent Zoe Carpenter states, “By now it’s clear that the novel coronavirus is no ‘great equalizer.’ Not everyone has work they can do from home or a vacation house to retreat to—let alone paid sick leave. These economic divides became obvious early in the pandemic’s spread, as states issued their stay-at-home orders . . . Race is missing or unspecified on nearly 60 percent of the confirmed cases reported by the CDC, and of this writing, the agency has not released demographic data on COVID-19 testing. Many states are effectively erasing Native Americans from their data sets by classifying them as ‘other,’ despite the fact that the states tracking that data, such as Arizona and New Mexico, have found severely disparate rates of infection or death” (3).

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The immigration story is also an environmental one. Sonia Shab, author of The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move, in an October 5/12 Nation called “After Dorian: No Exit” sites this extraordinary fact: “In 2019 the number of people uprooted by natural disasters exceeded the number of those displaced by conflict and violence by a factor of three, with tropical storms monsoon floods, and other climate calamities propelling more than 24 million people around the world out of their homes. In a positive solution to the situation, she offers. “Given our understanding of how climate shock influence migration, we can predict needs and manage migration in ways that make it safe, orderly, and humane. Legal pathways to migrate could allow people to leave vulnerable areas slowly, before disasters strike. Resources to increase resilience could reduce some people’s vulnerability and risk of displacement, moderating the pace of migration” (25).

II Methodology

Because of the immediacy of the subject of media, immigration, and the current pandemic, there is a dearth of the usual deep research such as longitudinal studies, content analyses, of other extensive qualitative or quantitative work on the subject. Therefore, a qualitative analysis has been undertaken by using, newspapers, news magazines, special interest publications such National Geographic and Smithsonian, broadcast and cable television and discussion radio such as NPR. These are some sources, among others, that an average news consumer would have access to. In addition, a sampling of online scholarship was analyzed and reported in the Literature Review section. An initial idea for this project was to interview some of the 50 Syrian families who were to relocate to the Berkshire. Unfortunately, because of xenophobic U.S policies, they never had a chance to arrive.

Literature Review: Trends & a World View

In the pandemic and writing about it

Scholarly research on the subject of Media and Immigration is extensive, but not so when adding the pandemic variable. That doesn’t mean that researchers are not addressing the subject. Scholars, however, are sailing on the internet tackling the combined subjects of the impact of the media, the current status of immigration, and the impact of Covid-19. Though varied in subjects and treatments they, for the most part, share a great concern for the great risks immigrants face during this pandemic. Some of the broad areas of focus in the canon include the sociological and other effects such as social ties and finances, etc., impact of the virus on Immigrants and their families, changes in the patterns of world-wide immigration, the impact on global economies, the virus’s influence on Asians and Pacific Islanders, and the

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severe health risks (to include mental health) to vulnerable, marginalized groups and their families. In addition, there is the terse reporting on the deaths in U.S, detention centers, the portrayal of migrants in social and legacy media, and how we think about immigrants through this portrayal, among others.

One Researcher looks at the macro picture of the impact of COVID-19 on Global Migration. He poses that the pandemic brought most of the world to a halt, but it also “fundamentally altered global human mobility,” and that has impacted the world’s economy and the safety of the migrants themselves. He concludes, “Whether it is Turkish guest workers in the 1960s, Vietnam Refugees across the globe in the 1970s, or rural farmers flocking to Chinese megacities in the 1980s, migrants have been the engine of the last century’s globalized economy. The inability of labor to move efficiently—or not at all—will impact future global output while putting migrant families themselves under greater financial strain. This, in turn, increase global inequality” (Yaboke p. 4).

Writing for the World Economic Forum, Abihinav Chugh looks at possible attitudinal and other changes toward immigrants in the COVID world: “Limitations on movement, while necessary to manage the virus, can make it difficult for migrants and asylum seekers to access protection, and may exacerbate inequality, discrimination, and exploitation . . . Now the COVID-19 pandemic and the fear of ‘the other’ shifts migration rhetoric further, by expanding the focus to include the risk to individual health security, as well” (p. 8).

Allyssa Scheyer gets right to the heart of the issues with the title of her article: “We Are Killing Them, The Heavy Toll COVID-19 Undocumented Takes on Undocumented Immigrants.” She outlines how many immigrants are “essential employees” putting themselves in danger of the disease while, at the same time, having little access to health care and other services right along. She also points out that 40-50,000 immigrants are in U.S detention camps. “There are already 200 detainees who have contracted COVID-19 at ICE facilities nationwide. This number is sure to increase as the virus spreads rapidly through crowded cells and common eating areas” (p.2).

POLITICO (2020) reviewed the 22 deaths of immigrants from 2013-2018 in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention. The article comprises mostly of ICE PR releases on the deaths. For example: September 22, 2020 Ice announced that Cipriano Chavez-Alvarez, a Mexican national who had been held at the Stewart Detention Center near Lumpkin, Georgia, died on September 21, 2020, at the Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbia, Georgia. The preliminary cause of death was reported to be “cardiopulmonary arrest, secondary to complications of corona virus disease (COVID-19)” (p. 2). The study revealed gaps in the use of technology by ICE, including the poor documentation of patient care. The study reported, “Those reviews echo complaints from experts and advocates for migrants who say attention to the medical needs of asylum seekers is indifferent at best.” In the report, it is Ironic given the great attention on the Southern border, of the 22 immigrants who had died, only two were from Mexico.

Others were from South Korea, Taiwan, Honduras, Canada, and others. From here, it is abundantly clear that the Federal Government’s Ice Machine is broken.

How they are portrayed in the media

As part of an EU funded study of women migrants and how they are misrepresented in “sending and receiving countries,” Hennebry, J., et al. analyzed 138 newspaper articles and found that women from Mexico, Moldova, and the Philippines who were studied were characterized in many ways, but, most importantly, not all negative. These include as victims such as abused or trafficked; as a threat like stealing jobs, a threat due to race, public security, foreign origin, but also portrayed as heroes, mothers, and care givers (p.3).

In an article on immigrant negative media portrayal of Latino men in Phoenix, Arizona and its influence on immigration policies, one author found that these portrayals are a clear message to immigrants, that “they do not belong and that they are not wanted.” With regard to policy decisions, she states, “’News outlets are where attitudes are shaped and through which politicians’ actions are conveyed to their constituencies, as well as, in turn what politicians may react to.’” In a positive finding was that immigrants fought back “by seeking to highlight their images as hard workers and sought to distance themselves from images of immigrants as criminals, and both the political context and media coverage tended to shape how immigrants view themselves” (Menjivar, p.1.)

Two other researchers analyzed 338 Immigration images in Newsweek, Time and U.S and World Report between 2000 and 2010 and found that the press often portrays immigration negatively, but with more photos of women and children appearing, lessens the depiction of Hispanics as murderers and rapists. They sum up their work this way: “Our recent research shows that the U.S media often show immigrants the way that the Trump administration sees them: as males in detention facilities and in Border Patrol’s custody. That influences Americans’ attitude toward those migrants. The current emphasis on showing children has offered a sympathetic portrayal of immigration families that may be less common, according to our data” (Ferris and Mohamed p.2).

In an analysis of five other studies aimed at defining how Latinos are depicted in the media, including Farris and Mohamed (2020), Marie Ordway looks at the personal impact of coverage and writes, “Research also indicates media coverage can affect how individuals see themselves and their place is society” (p. 1). Citing Census Bureau statistics she reports that nearly one fifth of people who live in the U.S., 18.5 percent identify as Latino or Hispanic. Reporting that Latino voters have increased by 121 percent since 2000 and, therefore, suggests that the media should improve their coverage of Latino voters. She concludes, “A recent Pew survey that found that many Latinos and others living in the U.S believe the news media misunderstand them.” (p. 1).

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Define American, a non-profit advocacy organization co-released a major study on how immigration representation on TV moves audiences to action. Per the report, 97 episodes of 59 scripted narrative TV shows on broadcast, cable or streamed shows between August 2018 and July 2019. Viewers who watch programs like Madam Secretary, Orange is the New Black, and Superstore which have strong immigration story lines were also surveyed. A major report finding was, “For each of the three shows, viewers who saw the immigration storyline had more inclusive attitudes toward immigrations than those who did not, including greater comfort meeting undocumented people and opposition to criminalizing undocumented immigrants. Those who saw the immigration storylines were also more likely to take certain related actions, such as speaking to a friend about immigration issues or attending an immigration-related community event.” (p.1).

Croucher, et al. studied prejudice in Social Media content towards Asians in the U.S. A major finding was, “ . . .the more a social media user believes their most used daily social media is fair, accurate, presents the facts, and is concerned about the public, . . . the more likely that user is to believe Chinese pose a realistic and symbolic threat to America.” Most importantly, they also found that those who do not use social media on a daily basis are “less likely than those who use Facebook to perceive Chinese as a symbolic threat” (p.1).

PS, It’s a health crisis

A study conducted by D’Alonso, et al. found great disparities in the way undocumented immigrants can cope during the current pandemic in the New Brunswick, New Jersey area. The researchers found that many immigrants work in the service area with poor job security, they don’t qualify for unemployment, and they often work without proper protective equipment. They also have to take public transportation putting them in more risk. With further regard to the health issue, they write, “Just getting tested for COVID can be an ordeal. At drive-in locations, people are asked to produce a social security number or have a state-issued ID to qualify for free testing. Many undocumented persons lack both of these official forms of identification” (p.1).

Rothman, et al. studied the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of immigrants. They theorize that COVID-19 has “impacted this population disproportionately with regards to their medical and psychiatric issues which put them at risk for psychiatric decompensation and would benefit from further review and data collection.” Citing some of the heaviest health concerns such as old age, obesity , diabetes, they also found that the “Worse outcome have been found in African American populations , Latino, American Indian, Alaska native and Pacific Islanders. They further write, “Although this pandemic did not cause these inequalities, the rate at which poor, immigrant minority populations are being affected cannot be ignored and should not be understated.”

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Cholera, et al. outline the disadvantages immigrants have as they battle the pandemic. They point out that one in four children (18 million) lives in an immigrant family and that that one in three undocumented children are uninsured. They also posit, “Additionally, immigrant families are more likely to live in multigenerational households heightening the risk of COVID-19 for multiple family members. Family with limited English proficiency (LEP) must decipher rapidly evolving public health directives such as ‘shelter in place’ orders and recommendations for mask-wearing without multilingual and culturally relevant messaging” (p. 2).

The pandemic is, in itself, a painfully severe health disaster especially for marginalized people like our immigrants. One medical doctor and her colleagues summarize the severity of the situation in an online article entitled “Undocumented U.S Immigrants and Covid-19. They write, ”Under the Trump administration, immigrants have faced relentless attacks—tightening of the public charge rule, threats to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), asylum restrictions, and separation of families at the border—so immigrants are justifiably scared. Expecting them to trust the government now, during the Covid-19 crisis, is naïve at best. As community organizations, activists, and health care providers scramble to reach out to immigrants and encourage them to seek care for Covid- 19 if necessary, we are using mitigation strategies that will not compensate for years of harm” (Page et al. p.1).

Meanwhile, here In the U.S. of A:

Per a Pew Research site, the United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants. The population of immigrants is also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented among U.S. immigrants (Connor and Lopez, p.1).

Today, even for those who are lucky to gain entrance to the county, they are often on the bottom rung of the economic ladder right along with others who have been there right along. Helaine Olen writes in an August 24, 2020 Berkshire Eagle commentary entitled “Why Aren’t We Treating Unemployment as an Emergency?, “But the increasing dire plight of the low- income unemployed is all but invisible. Long lines at food banks remain a thing. Rental evictions are resuming now that both federal and state moratoriums are running out. Mortgage delinquencies are on the rise. The president has promised to replace the previous $600-a-week supplement with a news $400-a-week benefit, but most workers would only get $300 a week, many of the lowest paid Americans wouldn’t qualify and the benefits would take weeks to go out” (p A5).

In a National Geographic article about the women’s suffrage movement called “The Fight to be Heard,” Rachel Hartigan writes about how rights, particularly voting, have been denied to many marginalized groups.

She says, “Women had worked for more than 20 years to gain access to the ballot, and now they finally had it. But black women still faced nearly insurmountable hurdles to voting in the south. Native American--men and women--weren’t even citizens until 1924; Chinese Americans had to wait until 1943. The real watershed moment for many minority women would be Congress’s passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965” (p 121).

What ties this all together, and what’s particularly meaningful to us today in the U.S. is that the people who tend to suffer the most are often poor, marginalized groups like Native Americans, African Americans who have to struggle just to breathe and Immigrants of all hues and nationalities who for years have been denigrated for seeking out the illusive American dream.

It ain’t all bad new, though

In the press good news is often overshadowed by the bad. That’s how the organizations try to stay in business. Then again, sometimes a small jewel appear. Time Magazine’s The 100 most influential people issue (Oct. 5-Oct. 12 2020) ran a small story about a Catholic nun in Texas who is trying to help immigrants stranded at the U.S. border. Per the article, Sister Norma Pimentel, Executive Director of the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, “. . . has housed and assisted well over 100,000 people at the border.” Author of the report Julian Castro, former U.S Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, writes, “Her work has taken on greater importance in the era of Donald Trump, and for good reason. As he has acted with cruelty towards migrants, she has acted with compassion. As he has preyed on the vulnerable and sought rejection, she has preached community and acceptance. As he has promoted fear, she has taught love” (p.28).

Reporting on recent survey data, Abby Budiman, in an article called “Key Finding about U.S. Immigrants” writes, “While immigration has at the forefront of national political debate, the U.S holds a range of views about immigrants living in the country. Overall a majority of Americans have positive views about immigrant. About two-thirds of Americans (66 %) say immigrants strengthen the country ‘because of their hard work and talents’. While about a quarter (24% say immigrants burden the country by taking jobs housing, and health care. Yet these views vary starkly by political affiliation. Among Democrats and Democratic leaning Independents. 88% think immigrants strengthen the country with their hard work and talents, and just 8% say they are a burden. Among Republicans, and Republican leaning Independents, 41% say immigrants strengthen the country, while 44% say then burden it.” Budiman (pp.17-18).

In Berkshire County

In a November 12, 2020 article entitled "Local Immigrants optimistic about Biden Win,” journalist Danny Jin identifies an unnamed 26-year-old immigrant expressed hope about future possibilities for other immigrants and who “said that whether through citizenship or a green card, he and other DACA holders seek ‘something that can be more stable like, and something that keeps us away from deportation proceedings.’ In the same story Emma Lezberg, a case worker for the Berkshire Immigrant Center said, “We know that somethings are almost certainly going to get better there won’t be family separations at the border”

(p. A8).

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In the Oct. 12, 2020 edition, the Berkshire Eagle reported the day after that in a socially distant event in Stockbridge, Mass. twelve people from nine different countries became U.S. citizens. One the new Americans was Helen Yameogo from Burkino Faso commented, “I want to be here to support my kids.” Noting the fear of potential separation, she said. “It should be about human beings and how we accept each other.” Speaking of all immigrants she concluded, “We have to support and help them” (Jin, A1).

The original intent of this article was to interview the 50 Syrian families who were scheduled to relocated here in the Berkshires, but they were trumped out of it. About two years ago, the Berkshire Eagle ran an extensive series on immigrants and the many positive things they do for Berkshire County and beyond from being business owner and entrepreneurs to providing many needed services and active involvement in the community. They now run a series on CEOs in the area to include Michelle Lopez the Executive Director of the Berkshire Immigrant Center Located in Pittsfield Mass. Per Lopez, the center is an organization that services people from 80 different countries with the largest group from Latin America. In the Q&A Lopez was asked about the major issues facing Berkshire Immigrants. Her response was one common to many people today—economy. She said, “Right now, it’s definitely finding jobs and keeping the hours. They’ve been able to increase the hours now because the economy has been slowly opening back up. But, it’s difficult, because I think that most people don’t understand that immigrants, not only in the Berkshires, but everywhere, are supporting their families here, and they’re also supporting their families back home, and many of their families back home are living in developing countries where COVID is also a huge factor” (Dobowalski, D2).

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Report Findings:

Though not all of the media portrayals are negative, they often echo how Immigrants have been treated the last four years by the Trump administration. It’s simple enough. People often believe the anti-Immigrant messages they read or hear, especially if repeated often, and this transfers to people’s beliefs and actions, both personal and political. However, generated xenophobic views of the non-whites is certainly not new. In a Time Magazine July 6-13 2020 brief called “Facing Racism,” writer Anna Purna Kambhampaty, writes, “HIV was blamed on Haitian Americans, the 1918 influenza pandemic on German Americans, the swine flu in 2009 on Mexican Americans. The racist belief that Asians carry disease goes back centuries. In the 1800s, out of fear that Chinese workers were taking jobs that could be held by white workers,

white labor unions argued for an immigration ban by claiming that ‘Chinese’ disease strains were more harmful than those carried by white people”(p. 52). Despite those representations and the ones people endure today, the future for Immigrants today will be a powerful story of their survival and prosperity. Marking William Faulkner’s conclusion of the Sound and the Fury, “They endured.”

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Conclusion:
Yes, there is a wall after all

For the past four years and perhaps earlier the plinth of our Democracy was crumbling, but it remains strong. Because of the U.S. government’s pathetic inability to control the pandemic, which many smaller and poorer countries have, the world no longer welcome us and for good reason. The Republican president finally got his wall, but it’s not the one that Steve Bannon is accused of stealing the donations for, it’s the one of mistrust and indifference in the greatest democracy on earth. The world doesn’t want us, at least not in our present medical/political position.

The politics of our election system maps to a blue and red process more akin to the Blue and the Grey. We are still a nation divided, and the fight is on for the soul of the nation. Handling the pandemic has been a derecho of missteps by the administration.

It is well known that Donald Trump bragged that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters. He was right. The defeated president has neglected to save any of the 400,000 (and counting) U.S citizens who have died of the disease--people from many avenues and broad and narrow ways all over America. This is his shameful act.

No More Goon Platoons

With the recent Biden/Harris election, hopefully gone are the days when our own administration sends in goon platoons to Portland and elsewhere to assault peaceful protestors under the guise of protecting federal property. Hennigan, W.J. (2020) in an article called “Battlefield Chicago” offers an assessment of the dangerous action that includes misuse of federal officers. He writes, “But Operation Legend, which has deployed agents from FBI, DEA and Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Explosives (AFT) in nine cities, offers critical expertise to solve crimes, it is irrelevant to the deeper systemic issues that contribute to the violence, such as poverty, underfunded public schools and structural racism”

Hope is with the vote

These are indeed turbulent times for all, especially since our nation was recently subjected to an armed attack on our capitol and on our democracy, the first such event since the Civil war, an attack orchestrated by the president of the United States no less. Despite this, we will more than survive and be stronger, and people will continue to want to come here for a better and

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safer life. The simple, important fact is we need immigrants for their tenacity and for the skills and work ethic they bring and for their contribution to each state’s incredibly important representation in Congress. The current blatant attempt for immigrants not be counted in the 2020 U.S. Census is reprehensible at best. These are overall good, resilient people and deserve to stay here and reach their potentials and live their dreams. They are the future of our diverse and free society country. This America. Hope is always with the vote.

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MCLA 1/24/21
Any questions or concerns, please Email P.Lesage@mcla.edu

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Works Cited
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31/September 7 2020: 23.
Bellow, Heather. “They came for love, education—and a future.” The Berkshire Eagle 15

October 2020: A1 & A9.
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https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/. Carpenter, Zoe. “Covid’s Uneven Toll” The Nation May 18/25 2020: 3-4.

Castro, Julian. “Sister Norma Pimentel: Compassionate Guardian.” Time Magazine October 5- 12: 28.

Connor, Phillip and Gustavo Lopez. “5 Facts about the U.S rank in worldwide migration. Pew Research. Web. 31 December 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5- facts-about-the-u-s-rank-in-worldwide-migration/.

Chugh, Abihinav. “Will COVID-19 Change How We Think About Migration and Migrant Workers.” The World Economic Forum. Web. 22 May 2020 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid-19-coronavirus-migration-migrant-workers- immigration-policy-health-securitization-risk-travel-bubbles/.

Croucher, Stephen M., Thao Nguyen, and Diyako Rahmani. “Prejudice Toward Asian Americans in the Civid-19 Pandemic: The Effects of the Social Media Use in the United States.” Web. Massey University, New Zealand. 2 September 2020 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00039/full?utm_campaign=ba-sci-fcomm- cov-19-prejudice&utm_medium=hub-div&utm_source=fweb\.

CNBC News segment on Immigration on the U.S. border. New York. November 2020.

Cholera, Rushina, Olanrewaju O. Falusi, and Julie M. Linton. “Sheltering in Place in a Xenophobic Climate: COVID-19 and Children in Immigrant Families.” Pediatrics July 2020 Web. 29 September 2020 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/146/1/e20201094.

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Conniff, Richard. “How Pandemics Change Us.” National Geographic August 2020: 48-76.

D’Alonzo, Karen. “The Pandemic’s Effect on Undocumented Immigrants’ Health.” Rutgers Center for Community Health Partnerships. Web. 22 April 2020 https://theconversation.com/immigrants-are-worrying-about-social-ties-and-finances-during- coronavirus-137983.

Define American. “New study examines how TV portrayals of immigrants affect real-life actions and attitudes.” USC Annenberg. Web. 30 September https://annenberg.usc.edu/news/research- and-impact/new-study-examines-how-tv-portrayals-immigrants-affect-real-life-actions.

Department of Economic and Social Affairs News. “The number of international migrants reaches 272 million, continuing an upward trend in all world regions, says UN” New York. Web

September 17, 2019 https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/international- migrant-stock-2019.html.

Dobrowalski, Tony. “Executive Spotlight.” The Berkshire Eagle 30 August 2020: D2.

Fitzpatrick, Alex, and Elijah Wolfson. “The American Nightmare.” Time Magazine September 21- 28 2020: 42-47.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. London: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929.

Harris, Emily and Heather Silber Mohamed. “The news media usually show immigrants as dangerous criminals. That’s changed—for now, at least.” Web. 28 October 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/06/27/the-news-media-usually-show- immigrants-as-dangerous-criminals-thats-changed-for-now-at-least/.

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